Religious Persecution Drives Colonists to North America
Hannah Peterson
AP US History
Religious Persecution Drives Colonists to North America
August 25, 2014 Religious Persecution Drives Colonists to North America What is the Mayflower Compact and what is its significance to American History? This is a question asked frequently by many schools across America, but rarely ever is its answer distributed. Everyone who lives in the United States has surely heard of the Mayflower Compact, they may even know what it is further than its name, but do they understand its impact and importance to the very makeup of this beloved America that is here today? Just in case the answer to that question is no, the significance of the Mayflower Compact can be discovered with three supporting points, the Compacts reason, its contents, and its effects.
To understand the answer to this question as much as possible, it is important to uncover the details in order. This means that before anyone even attempts to grasp what the Compact says, they must understand why it was written first. The pilgrims that wrote this document where originally intending to land in Virginia, and whether by a miscalculation, a change in plans, or an act of god, they landed instead in Massachusetts in 1620. Because of this, they were no longer within jurisdiction of the Virginia Charter, which was a document issued by King James I of England, which basically permitted land rights to be passed on to come colonists in order to spread Christianity to different places. The area that the Charter covered is all on the east coast, figuratively from todays South Carolina to Canada, and present day Massachusetts was not included in this. For the pilgrims that just landed there, this meant big trouble, and if they did not do something fast, they would likely be punished. Their solution, instead of moving to an area that fell under the allowed areas, was to drop completely out of jurisdiction of the England Government and create their own, which meant that they could
AP US History
Religious Persecution Drives Colonists to North America
August 25, 2014 Religious Persecution Drives Colonists to North America What is the Mayflower Compact and what is its significance to American History? This is a question asked frequently by many schools across America, but rarely ever is its answer distributed. Everyone who lives in the United States has surely heard of the Mayflower Compact, they may even know what it is further than its name, but do they understand its impact and importance to the very makeup of this beloved America that is here today? Just in case the answer to that question is no, the significance of the Mayflower Compact can be discovered with three supporting points, the Compacts reason, its contents, and its effects.
To understand the answer to this question as much as possible, it is important to uncover the details in order. This means that before anyone even attempts to grasp what the Compact says, they must understand why it was written first. The pilgrims that wrote this document where originally intending to land in Virginia, and whether by a miscalculation, a change in plans, or an act of god, they landed instead in Massachusetts in 1620. Because of this, they were no longer within jurisdiction of the Virginia Charter, which was a document issued by King James I of England, which basically permitted land rights to be passed on to come colonists in order to spread Christianity to different places. The area that the Charter covered is all on the east coast, figuratively from todays South Carolina to Canada, and present day Massachusetts was not included in this. For the pilgrims that just landed there, this meant big trouble, and if they did not do something fast, they would likely be punished. Their solution, instead of moving to an area that fell under the allowed areas, was to drop completely out of jurisdiction of the England Government and create their own, which meant that they could